They kicked him and beat him, threw objects at him and butted him as he lay injured and helpless on the floor of the bus. A crowd of people stood around him: Some cheered, others were silent, and a few were stunned.
The vicious assault of two Arab bus drivers in Jerusalem Thursday night is the assault Israel has been committing in the Gaza Strip for 20 months.
Like a model village, a scaled-down version that is strikingly similar. In Israel, the model drew more opposition than the original, but the war in Gaza is infinitely more brutal than the attack in Jerusalem.
The hooligan fans of the Beitar Jerusalem soccer team don't need a reason to beat up an Arab bus driver who provides them with service, but this time they had one: Zahi Ahmed, an Arab player, had the audacity to score a goal against Beitar, helping his team, Hapoel Be'er Sheva, win the Israel State Cup in the final.
To Beitar's hooligans, a goal by an Arab player, especially in the cup final, is almost October 7. It cannot be ignored. Like after October 7, an immediate response is necessary. The way they see it, the league should have been Arab-free long ago; the chutzpah of an Arab player scoring against the most Jewish team – in the cup final, to boot – could not go unanswered.
If you were stunned by the assault, how can you not be stunned by the war?
Both the assault and the war had a pretext. Not that one can even begin to compare the horrors of October 7 to a soccer goal, but neither can two injured bus drivers be compared to a thousand dead babies. October 7 was a horrific crime. In the eyes of La Familia, an ultra group that supports Beitar, an Arab scoring a goal against a Jewish team is also a crime that cannot be brushed aside.
Beitar Jerusalem assaulting an Arab bus driver in Jerusalem on Thursday.
From here on out, the similarity only increases. In both cases, the response was unlawful, illegitimate and completely disproportionate. Calling the war in Gaza a just war – "the most just war in our history" – is as crazy as saying the Beitar fans had a reason for beating up the drivers. These drivers have as much of a connection to Beitar's loss as the children of Gaza do to October 7.
To say that the objective of the war is to free the hostages and defeat Hamas is as ridiculous as thinking that assaulting a bus driver will prevent Arab players from scoring goals. The hooligans thought to deter players by assault, and Israel thinks it will deter Gaza by genocide. The thirst for revenge is also similar.
In both cases, there was no restraint, neither legal nor moral. Beating without mercy is like bombing and shelling without mercy. In both cases, most of the victims are innocent. The power dynamics are also similar: dozens of people against one driver, like the best-equipped army in the world against a helpless population. A brutal assault on Gaza. Bombing and shelling it, even when it is already lying on the ground, sick, hungry and bleeding, just like kicking the driver as he lies bruised and bleeding.
The assaults were not the first of their kind in Jerusalem, nor will they be the last; according to the Bus Drivers Union, every day there are at least two attacks on Arab drivers in Jerusalem. The current attack on Gaza is also not the first, of course, nor the last.
As for the surrounding crowd. "Oh, Oh," the bystanders shout, whether in shock or excitement. No one came to the drivers' defense, not even a single righteous person in Jerusalem. The two drivers won't recover quickly from the trauma, and it's doubtful they'll ever be able to drive a bus in this fascist city again. Gaza won't recover either. It will remain forever stunned by what Israel has done to it.
Look at the assaults in Jerusalem and see Israel; look at the passive bystanders shouting "Oh, Oh" – and see us, almost every one of us.